How Engineering Taught Me To Manage My Emotions Better Than Therapy
A problem-solving framework for happiness.
This summer, I started working with some of the smartest young people I’ve ever met.
They fly around the world to deliver keynote speeches on innovation and emerging technologies. They are recognized by global brands for starting exponential companies, and they work as machine learning developers at the most impactful companies in the world — ll before turning 18.
I met many of them during my training in Toronto earlier this year. During our one-on-one meetings, there was one question that almost all of them, without fail, asked me:
“Hayley, how did you become so enthusiastic and confident? Were you always like this?”
To which I would answer:
“Nope, I DEFINITELY have not always been like this. What you see in front of you is built from years of deriving and proofing my own personal, multivariate equation for happiness 😄.”
Alright, Alright… I Know What You’re Thinking
But hear me out for a second.
I’m not extremely happy and exceptionally confident every day. Most days, I don’t feel 100% in this respect. In fact, I was somewhat taken aback when asked that question so often this summer. Building sustainable self-esteem and happiness has been a cornerstone of my life for the past 10 years.
There are two key moments in my life that led me to develop my equation of happiness.
🔑 Moment # 1
I figured out it was possible to actualize my own happiness
When I was a teenager, my self-worth was barely non-zero. A plethora of experiences led me to an incredibly low place to where, thankfully, I’ve never returned.
On one of my lowest days, when I was feeling especially bad for myself, a woman asked me, “Hayley, what is it that you actually want?”
After boiling down all the BS, I said to her, “I just want to be happy.”
At the time, I fundamentally believed I could never be happy with myself. So she said, “Okay, you have nothing to lose then! Follow the process I’m showing you, let go of all your expectations, and worst-case scenario, you’re back at square one.”
Hard to argue with that.
So that’s exactly what I did. I spent two full years focusing on that one thing and that one thing only. And for the first time in my life, I figured out how to realize my own happiness.
Lesson Learned 💪. I can do this!
🔑 Moment # 2
I went to engineering school
Fast forward a few years when I transferred from my first college to Columbia University to pursue a degree in chemical engineering my junior year.
I left my best friends on the other side of the country, I was in a much harder program, and for the first time in my life, I struggled academically. When I got a B- in a class, my ego completely deflated. I realized just how much self-worth I staked on my academic accomplishments. What I thought was a solid foundation of self-esteem, really just turned out to be a house of cards. Once again, I was at a low.
Then one day, in my chemical kinetics course, we were solving systems of linear equations to find the rates of chemical reactions. In reaction kinetics, the amount of product at any point in time is simply a linear combination of the concentrations of different reactants multiplied by their respective rate constants.
As I was half listening, half brooding, something finally clicked for me. I thought, OMG, what if I can just solve for my own happiness in the same way I solve these equations to maximize the amount of product produced? What if I can boil happiness down to a customized equation of physical, mental, and emotional inputs?
BOOM💥
For an over-thinker like me, this was revolutionary. From that point on, I started to apply the problem-solving frameworks I learned as a chemical engineer to my emotions, and I set out to treat my happiness like one big optimization problem.
Lesson Learned 👩🔬: I can develop a systematic framework to maintain and improve my emotional well-being.
Building the Multivariate Equation for Happiness
After this realization, I got to work on defining my equation. Because I loooove a good optimization problem, I started experimenting with how to predict my self-worth and happiness with a multiple linear regression model.
The key here was to view my emotional reactions under the lens of a scientist, rather than a therapist. This mindset enabled me to objectively evaluate what was working and what wasn’t in my quest to hack my happiness.
Quick aside on the math
The mathematical details of running a linear regression aren’t that important for the purpose of building an emotional framework. All you need to know are a few basics.
A multiple linear regression explains the relationship between one dependent, or target, variable (y) and two or more independent variables (x1, x2, x3, …).
Each of these independent variables has a coefficient, or weight, attached to them (b1, b2, b3, ….) that dictates the importance of that variable to the predicted outcome (y).
Components in terms of happiness:
y = overall happiness
b0 = base-level happiness — i.e. how happy you naturally are without doing anything
x1, x2, etc. = the amount of input — i.e. how much time you spend exercising, time spent meditating, or how much you job is aligned with your passion
b1, b2, etc. = the amount each input contributes to your overall happiness
Hopefully, you understand where I’m coming from at a high level. Next, I’ll dive into the four simple, but not necessarily easy, steps to follow in order to develop your own custom equation for personal fulfillment.
Step 1: Define Your Happiness
Happiness is a broad term, and it means something different to everyone.
In order to derive a useful equation for yourself, you need to understand how you feel when you’re at your happiest. For me, I realized it’s directly tied to feeling successful.
To break that down further, I feel successful and happy when:
- I wake up feeling genuine excitement to take on the day
- I have clear, fulfilling goals in the front of my mind
- I know what I need to do to achieve those goals, and I trust myself to achieve those goals
- I’m constantly growing, learning, and challenging myself
- I have strong, loving relationships with friends and family
- I’m helping others and making a positive impact on the world
Notice that neither money nor accomplishments are anywhere on that list! When I first started this journey, I assumed those things would be cornerstones to my happiness. Spoiler alert: I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Think about the happiest periods of time in your life and dig deep into why you felt so fulfilled in those moments. I’m not talking about a fleeting, one-off moment of joy; I’m talking about a sustained sense of confidence, inner peace, and purpose.
If you have never felt this way, that’s okay! Picture the most ideal, functional version of yourself. This is the version of yourself who is completely okay with who they are. What do you think makes them feel joy and fulfillment?
As you experiment, you’ll figure out what’s important to you if you remain curious about yourself. I personally started from scratch, and it only worked out because I was relentlessly invested in figuring out how to be happy.
Step 2: Determine Your Inputs
I separate my variables into 5 categories:
- Physical health
- Mental health
- Work + purpose
- Relationships
- Impact
For the sake of space, check out my variables below 👇
Now, you might be thinking, dear god! That’s so extra, Hayley.
To that I say:
I get it. Again, this is all about personal experimentation. Anyone who knows me knows I love to drill down into the nitty-gritty details, so it might be better to keep it at a high level. Go figure out what works for you!
If you don’t know which variables to start with, go ask the three happiest, most confident people you know out to coffee and ask them what they do to maintain their mindset!
Start there, then add and delete variables as you learn more about what makes you tick.
Step 3: Figure Out The Importance of Each Variable
This is my favorite part!! 😍
It’s why I love breaking my happiness down into components. The weights (coefficients) can change when you obtain new data about yourself or when your life circumstances become different. This makes it easier to adapt to whatever life throws at you.
For instance, right now my coefficient attached to spending time with a significant other is essentially zero since I don’t have any prospects in that department. We’re chillin’ over here 😎.
As another example, my coefficient around helping others is lower than I’ve ever had it. This is because I’m getting that fulfillment out of my current job, mentoring 65 incredible and talented high school students.
Therefore, I do not need to do as much outside my job to help others as I have in the past. It’s folded into the other variables, and we don’t want multicollinearity now, do we? Math jokes.
Step 4: Repeat Steps 1–3!
Iterate, iterate, iterate!
The more I learn about myself, the more my equation changes. This has been a years-long process for me, and I guarantee my equation will continue to evolve throughout my lifetime. My inputs and coefficients have changed dramatically even in just the past 6 months.
But that’s the beauty of this framework.
The more you are objectively curious about yourself and the more data you gather about what gives you a sense of purpose, the more you can tweak the equation to optimize your own happiness.
So try new things! Life is cyclical, and happiness isn’t permanent. Every time I think I’ve got it all figured out, I will inevitably go through another slump that challenges all my beliefs about happiness and success. I’ll then re-design my equation.
Even when I’m feeling my best, I often struggle to follow my own advice, and to be completely honest, I’m almost never 10 out of 10 happy or self-confident.
But because I keep trying to optimize my happiness framework, each successive time I go through something tough, I don’t fall as far and don’t stay as long.
